No More Bootleg Sheep Guts!

Posted Monday, January 25, 2010, at 4:43 PM

Yes, it's supposed to look like that.

Finally! After 21 years, the ban on the importation of the Scottish delicacy, haggis, has been lifted.

Hallelujah!

Haggis consumption was driven underground by the scare over the appearance in Great Britain in the 1980s of bovine spongiform encephalitis, or "mad cow disease" as all the cartoonists and bad comedians are so glad it was more popularly known. It was feared that the disease could make eating haggis lethal. Many people, myself included, assumed it pretty much was already.

But the dark days are over now. No more will Americans who enjoy the culinary experience of scarfing down a sheep's liver and lights jammed into a sack made of its own stomach be forced to make shady deals in back alleys with sheep gut perveyors of dubious character, or have to settle for sham haggis. One newly liberated gastronome (or is that gastropod?) is Margaret Frost, of the Scottish American Society in Ohio. She is very pleased with the end of the ban, since she says, "We have had to put up with the US version, which is made from beef and is bloody awful."

There's a US version? That is news to me, but if it is true, I am certainly prepared to believe that it is bloody awful.

So just in time for Burns Night, run down to your local purveyor of offal (I'm not going to suggest any by name since they might take it the wrong way) and bring home a nice, rugby-ball-looking treat for the family.

And remember: Only accept official offal. Unofficial offal is bloody awful offal.